


The Trolley Problem

by Anonymous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, MCD, Mild Sexual Content, Multi, Roommates, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29668836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Pansy Parkinson isn’t brave. She’s not selfless. She’s not the person you expect to save the world. Yet here she is.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Pansy Parkinson/ James Potter/ Remus Lupin, Pansy Parkinson/James Potter, Pansy Parkinson/Remus Lupin
Comments: 15
Kudos: 23
Collections: Tag(line) You're It! Competition





	The Trolley Problem

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Tagline_Youre_It_Comp_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Tagline_Youre_It_Comp_2020) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> This was written for the Tag! you’re it! Fest! I chose apocalypse and received James Potter/Pansy Parkinson/& Remus Lupin! My trope was Roommate AU and my tag line was “The first casualty of war is innocence” from Platoon! 
> 
> For the Tag! You’re it! Fest  
> Much love to my alpha and beta, who are anonymous for right now. Just know that they’re both fabulous.

* * *

  
**Pairing: Pansy, James, Remus**

**Quote: “The first casualty of war is innocence”**

**Trope: Roommate AU**

**The Trolley Problem**

  
  
  


_ “The trolley problem is a series of thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas of whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number.” _

* * *

  
  
  


“You expect me to allow a Death Eater to stay in my home when they killed my wife?”

“Calm yourself, James,” Remus cautions, a settling hand resting upon the other man’s shoulder. 

“Yes,” she says simply, “because I’m the only one who knows how to kill him.”

James looks to Dumbledore and Moody, who both have been silent during this entire exchange. Dumbledore gives James a small smile that he meant to be reassuring, James thinks. _ It’s not.  _

“Tell me why,” he demands. “Why would a Death Eater, a mere girl from the look of you,  _ time travel _ , to help the opposing side win? How am I expected to believe that?”

“I didn’t do it for the ‘Greater Good’,” she explains. “I did it because I don’t want to live in a world where he exists. He is dead in my time, of course, but his disease remains. And so long as he remains, I will be unable to endure.” 

She smoothes out nonexistent lines in her pants. 

“I am not brave, I am not selfless, and I am _ not _ filled with gallant chivalry that would have me throwing myself in front of a curse for you. I was thrown into the wrong side of a war because I wanted the approval of my family and the love of a boy who was never mine. That may make me seem fickle, but I was young. For all of my flaws, I have two glaring strengths: the ability to survive, and the ability to exploit loopholes. Maybe it’s because I am a quintessential Slytherin, or maybe it’s because I spent my last year at Hogwarts desperately trying to undermine a regime that I was a traitor to. But, I have information, and to not use me would be rather foolish.”

James shares a long look with Remus, one that bespoke years of brotherhood. One look holds an entire conversation, and she can see it play out, before James Potter finally met her eyes. 

“Very well, then. You can stay.”

* * *

  
  


Remus and James find her sitting in front of the fireplace one night, after a mission went sideways. She has silent tears running slowly down her face, and James kneels in front of her and takes her hands in his. He’s never done well with crying girls—even Death Eater ones. Remus sits quietly beside her. 

“It’s natural to feel this way,” Remus says, “War is hard. Not that I think you haven't suffered it before, because obviously you have. I just mean… we understand.”

James squeezes her hands, and she meets his gaze. She’s startled to find flecks of green and gold in his brown eyes. 

“I know you think I’m some horrid Slytherin Pureblood,” she says, and despite her tears, her voice is steady with quiet conviction. “But I’d never actually killed anyone before tonight.” 

“We’ve all had to at one point or another,” he finds himself reasoning with her. “The first casualty of war is innocence. Everyone has blood on their hands. It’s just that with us, that blood comes from keeping others safe.”

Remus nods, adding, “You don’t have to regret doing what’s necessary to protect people who are still innocent. You don’t have to feel bad.” 

She now knows the reason she will never deserve someone like James Potter or Remus Lupin. They expect her to feel bad and to be able to comfort her because good people  _ feel _ bad when committing murder.

She meets both of their eyes steadily, “that’s the thing... I don’t feel bad at all.”   
  


* * *

  
  
  


It happens the way most love stories do. Two―or in this case three―people start off rocky, but somehow, bonds of friendship form and then effortlessly slide into something that’s not tangible but felt anyway. 

James hadn’t even found her attractive at first, still mourning his wife’s death, Lily, as he was. She was Lily's complete opposite. His wife had vivid red hair, freckles, and was curvy in all the right places. She was soft and warm. James misses her terribly to this day, though it has been months. 

This girl―woman―though, is all hard lines and cold exterior. She has long black hair, piercing blue eyes, and not a blemish in sight. Her mouth is turned downwards in a perpetual frown, and her nose slightly squished. While these were not things one would call pretty, they are striking nonetheless.

She looks at him and Remus with a quiet mischief in her eyes, and he likes to see it. Too often, she gets a faraway look in them, and James knows she’s taken away to a place worse than this. 

James thinks maybe the reason he’s grown to love her is because she’s unapologetic. She says the hard thing everyone thinks but never voices. She freely admits to believing that Death Eaters should be killed, not imprisoned. 

When asked to voice her reasons, she states that people break out of prisons, and everyone except the four who know her origins laugh at her. 

She’s taught James that it’s okay not to be light all of the time, and he’s learned more curses from her than he’d ever thought possible. He struggles to come to terms with this at times. Remus is understanding, of course, but James wishes Sirius was back from his mission in Bulgaria. He too, had been gone for months with no word other than the occasional Patronus.

She finds her boys sitting at the kitchen table and immediately summons a bottle of fire whisky. 

Remus conjures a few tumblers and passes them around. 

“What made you decide to come back?” James asks her. “I know you said Voldemort, but he was gone. The disease would have healed eventually.”

She knocks her drink back and is silent for a moment. And they both think that maybe she’d refuse to answer. They never ask about the future because something in it makes grief and guilt swell up in her eyes. 

“There was a battle,” she whispers, “at Hogwarts. Voldemort was searching out someone who was at the top of his hit list. A boy in my year… I believed that we should give him up, because I didn’t want everyone I’d worked so hard to protect that year, to just die for one person.”

“It wasn’t brave. No, but it was logical I thought. I didn’t want to see children die. But everyone thought that I was just a spineless, self-serving Slytherin. I believed that one for the many wouldn’t be as horrific as the slaughter that happened.” 

James and Remus both stay silent, knowing that opinions like these rarely make a difference when voiced. She doesn’t need them to agree or disagree. She just needs them to listen. 

“After the war, no one forgot that moment. I was a pariah. Even the ones I’d been protecting from the Cruciatus Curse all year, deserted me. It wasn’t until the Interim Minister for Magic approached me, about the never-ending stream of utter bullshite we’d all been thrown into. He and his assistant told me of their plan to send someone back.”’Pansy snorted then, “ Their plan for me was hardly altruistic. They needed someone who wouldn’t be missed, but smart enough to affect the change they needed. Someone dispensable. Someone like me.”

“I agreed, because there was nothing for me there and I knew that I could do this. And maybe… maybe a part of it was to make some sort of amends.”

Somehow, her teeth clash with Remus’ whilst her hands grip James through his trousers, and they all groan together. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knows this shouldn’t be happening, but she’s too far gone to care. She’s coiled tightly like a spring, and she needs this. She has to feel something good. She needs to remember that there is life outside of war and that life can feel better than miserable. 

She apparates them to her quarters in Potter Manor, and divests herself quickly of clothing. They follow suit, and Pansy notices a distinct golden hue in Remus’ eyes. It’s two days until the full moon, and while this should fill her with fear, all it does is heighten her arousal. James places himself behind her and grinds himself into her arse, causing her to moan wantonly.

Remus is stroking himself at the sight of them and yanks her towards him. It’s rough and animalistic, and she’s taken in ways that make her forget, just for one moment, who she is. 

She is nestled between them afterwards, and James looks at her. He’s troubled, and so she waits for him to say what’s on his mind. She glances to her other side, and Remus is fast asleep. His scars seemed to soften, and Pansy finds he looks younger when his face is free of stress. 

“I still love Lily,” James whispers, and she turns her attention back to him. “I don’t know if I will ever stop loving her. She was my soulmate.” 

Pansy nods, “I’m not made for a happy ever after, James. But I’m happy right  _ now _ . And that’s good enough.”

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Pansy walks into the makeshift hospital wing of Headquarters with trepidation. 

Somehow, she’s allowed herself to forget this one important thing. 

She might have convinced herself that she’d altered the timeline so completely that she erased someone completely out of existence. 

She knew better than anyone alive that the Boy-Who-Lived was not so easily defeated. 

James, Remus and two others who can only be the final members of their motley crew are crowded around one of the beds. Pansy immediately notices tension and stands quietly by the door. Observing, but giving them space. Sirius Black gives her a mildly confused look before returning his focus to James and whispers quietly to him. 

James’ face is lined with distress.

Lily Potter is unconscious for now, the multiple healing remedies she’d been given would have been unbearable otherwise. 

From what little they were able to get from her,- they have surmised that she’s been held captive and escaped only by accidental magic. 

Accidental magic was rare in adults. But there are exceptions to every rule. 

Being eight months pregnant and prone to magical outbursts was one of them. 

Pansy is happy that Lily Potter is alive, it means that things are going well. It means that Harry Potter is a target, that Peter Pettigrew is a spy. That in little more than a year's time, Voldemort will make his move on Godric's Hollow. 

Pansy is happy about this. She really is. 

Really.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Over the next several months Pansy learns why Lily Potter nee’ Evans was the focus of two legendary love stories. 

She is incredibly kind, exceptionally beautiful, and fierce. 

She’s given birth to Harry, who Pansy grudgingly admits is a rather adorable baby. 

She’s also taken to Pansy being a sudden fixture in her life well.. 

Pansy wonders if Lily would still like her if she knew Pansy had been fucking her husband all those months ago. 

Thinking about James in these quiet moments always comes with a sharp pull in her chest. She knows that she loves him beyond rationale. His wife is back, and he never really fell out of love with Lily. Pansy has known from the moment his lips had touched hers that theirs was a fickle romance―doomed from the very start. 

But she sometimes catches James eyes whilst no one else is looking, and she sees a nostalgic longing in them. 

She could still go to Remus, of course, but both of them knew James’ absence was a festering wound, now that their triangle had dwindled to a line. 

Lily finds her sometime later, and sets a cup of tea down in front of her. 

“Sickle for your thoughts?” The pretty redhead smiles at her, and Pansy feels an all-too-familiar guilt swell up in her. 

“They’re so scattered that, even if I was willing to share, I’d be unable to organize them.”

Lily frowns, “I’m sorry you’ve been put into such an awful situation.”

Lily knows where she comes from, and Pansy sighs. Once again, she wishes her origins were slightly more obscure to the Potter Family. 

“I’ve not been put into anything. This is something I chose to do. My own pound of flesh, if you will.” 

“Surely you’ve done enough to absolve yourself from whatever it is that has you feeling so guilty. Half of the Order would be dead if not for your intel.”

Pansy smiles mockingly. “It’s a rather gallant notion, isn’t it? That a few good deeds can make up for a lifetime of choosing wrong? I have no illusions about my debt. It is heavy, and it is a life long sentence. You have no understanding because you’ve been a good person your entire life. If you had any idea of the things I’ve truly done..” James’ face is clear behind her eyes. “Well, you’d hate me, too.”

She sips her tea, content to let the silence hang between them. She does not want to get close to Lily. She knows it’s partly because she is jealous of the witch, but the other is that she just doesn’t want to care about anyone else. 

Things don’t need to be harder than they already are.

Lily is not one for silence, unfortunately. 

“Are you talking about your time in the future, or here in your past?”

Pansy looks at her, and Lily's eyes are knowing. They are also forgiving, and full of compassion. 

Pansy hates it, but she answers anyway, knowing she owes so much more. 

“Both, always both.”

* * *

  
  
  


Pansy sobs in relief and happiness when she and Dumbledore,  _ finally _ , destroy the last horcrux. Dumbledore stares at the ring in shock, and maybe something like wistfulness. Pansy doesn’t bother asking. 

“It is almost over,” he says, measuring her with those knowing eyes of his. 

“Yes.” Simple, to the point. 

“And do they know of your plan?”

“No,” Pansy bares her teeth slightly, “and they never will.”

“We can find another way,” Dumbledore pleads. “You do not have to forfeit your life. We can defeat him in combat.”

“And how many will die in that battle? My purpose here was to kill him, this is a sure way to do that.”

Pansy has always been stubborn, and so she levels her old headmaster with an unapologetic glare until Dumbledore bows his head in assent. 

“You are brave, Pansy Parkinson.”

She sneers in response.

Pansy apparates to the home in Godric's Hollow. She looks in the window and sees the Potters laughing. Sirius and Remus are there. The traitor is, too. Still, they look picturesque. Happy. Alive. 

Pansy knows now that the problem with hanging around Gryffindors is that they start to feel like friends. 

She sighs and opens the door. 

One week.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


“James, Lily, go! Frank and Alice are expecting you. I have Harry. Please just enjoy yourselves for once. I’ll Floo you if I need you.” 

Lily and James look between Pansy and Harry, expressions anxious. Pansy herself is anxious―for entirely different reasons― it is almost dark and she doesn’t have a lot of time. She gives them both quick hugs and kisses on the cheeks and pushes Lily through the Floo first. 

James makes to follow his wife, but before he does, he turns to look at her. For the first time in months, Pansy wishes she would have told him about this night. 

“Thank you,” he says, and Pansy knows he means for more than just babysitting. 

“Always.”

And as he leaves, she seals her heart away. 

Pansy takes Harry up to the nursery, and places a few quick kisses on his face. It is easy to separate this baby from the boy she’d regarded with so much disdain in her youth. 

She places many protection charms around him, though she knows the Dark Lord will dismantle them easily. 

The sun has barely set when she hears the door burst open. 

“Expecto Patronum,” Pansy whispers. “Tell James and Remus it is done. Tell them I have no regrets. Tell them I’m sorry.”

As Lord Voldemort enters the nursery, Pansy’s mouth lifts a bit at the corners, a hint of a smile forming because  _ finally _ this moment has arrived. All that she’d been working towards, sharpened into this last, finite moment. 

“And who might you be?” Voldemort's high pitched voice is mildly surprised. 

“I’m nobody important,” she says dismissively. 

“I’m not sure I believe you, my child,” he says, his red eyes measuring her. “No matter. Step aside, and you can leave with your life.”

She laughs arrogantly now, and notices with grim pleasure that this seems to infuriate him.

“I highly doubt it, My Lord,” she replies mockingly. 

She knows the end is near. She sees him raise his wand arm. 

Fairytales will have you believe that when death is inevitable, that time slows down. Pansy now knows for a few seconds that this is, in fact, a myth. Time does not slow down to give her a moment to take measure of her life, to see it flash in real time before her eyes. No, that is not what happens at all.Instead, she sees the faces of two men and a red haired woman behind her eyes and she thinks,  _ “maybe, Harry had it right the whole time. Some things are worth dying for.”  _

She’s never struggled when it comes to sacrifice. She’s always believed the one for the many was a better choice. 

She lifts her chin. The green curse strikes her in the chest, and Pansy knows no more. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Harry Potter grows up normal. Well, as normal as it can be for the Boy Who Lived. 

In his first year, his parents hold back tears as he boards the Hogwarts Express, and he befriends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. No one tries to kill him. He is perfectly ordinary. 

He makes friends with people from all houses, as his parents made sure to ingrain in him that prejudice wasn’t one sided and they themselves had personally known a Slytherin who was incredibly brave.

His Potions Professor doesn’t take a liking to him, but he suspects his mum owled Snape a strongly worded letter, for after his initial tauntings of the young Gryffindor, the Potions Professor regressed to simply scowling at him. 

He makes the Quidditch team, and his fathers letter was barely legible as he conveyed his excitement. 

He has a few friends in Slytherin that were jealous of this, but Harry knows they don’t nag him maliciously. 

All in all, his first year of Hogwarts passed uneventfully, and Harry can not wait to see his family again. 

Harry exits the train with his friends in tow, excited to introduce them to his parents. He’s mildly surprised to see Sirius and Remus there as well, but this just makes him happier to be going home. 

“Mum! Dad!” He greets. “I just wanted to introduce you to some of my friends. This is Hermione, Ron, Draco, Neville you already know of course, and Pansy.”

The last one is a small girl who has piercing blue eyes and black hair to her shoulders. Her nose is slightly squished, and her mouth is turned down at the corner. While none of these qualities are what one would call attractive, they were striking nonetheless. 

The Marauders and Lily all eye one another with astonishment. 

“I told her that’s my sister's name, too!” Harry prattles on, blissfully unaware of the sudden tension amongst his parents and Uncles. “Isn’t that odd?”

Finally, James smiles as he eyes the girl, whose face flushes slightly at the attention.

“No, Harry,” James says. “No, I don’t think it’s odd at all.”

* * *

  
  
  


The End. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
